


Life Sentence

by incognitajones



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, bonding over board games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/incognitajones
Summary: Ransolm should’ve come out of prison recharged and ready to launch himself into battle. He wanted to... he just didn’t know where to start.
Relationships: Ransolm Casterfo & Rose Tico
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11
Collections: May the 4th Be With You Star Wars Fanworks Exchange 2020





	Life Sentence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kyrilu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/gifts).



> It was a joy to explore how a friendship between these two might start, and I hope you enjoy this story!

The most confusing thing about being rescued from prison was the lethargy and lack of purpose. 

Ransolm should’ve come out of that hole recharged and ready to launch himself into battle. He should have been pawing at the ground to fight back. And he wanted to, he did... but he didn’t know where to start. 

It wasn’t like he’d been able to keep his finger on the pulse of galactic politics while in a black site prison. His jailers had let some information slip from time to time, but he’d been too suspicious to believe it wholeheartedly. Emerging to find that the New Republic had fallen at the hands of the First Order, the galaxy was in all-out war, and Leia Organa was once again the leader of a faction of armed rebels was a shock—well, perhaps not that last. Leia had always been too impatient and uncompromising for a true politician. The uniform of a guerilla leader fit her much better. 

Everyone he met in the Resistance was understanding and supportive. The doctors told him there was nothing wrong with him that time wouldn’t heal. True, his body was skinny, pale and feeble from years of deprivation—but regular meals and breathing an actual atmosphere instead of filtered recycled air, not to mention getting a little UV radiation, helped. He’d even put on a little weight. 

But his mind still seemed trapped, hiding in a dark place, unable to break free from recollected pain. And seeing Leia again only added to the hurt. She wasn’t defeated, never that; but she’d been wounded by all the losses she’d taken while he was imprisoned. Ransolm had to get better so that he could step up, relieve her of a little of the burden she carried... but he was deeply aware that he was not the person she needed in place of her husband, her brother, or her son. She was kind and encouraging, but what use was a disgraced ex-Senator with little military training and no supernatural Force powers?

So he tried to stay out of Leia’s way while he slowly rebuilt his strength, and she was so busy that it worked most of the time. She still assigned someone to watch over him—her young aide, the one with a face that looked more apt for cheerfulness than anger, but carried the set lines of determination to fight as long as it took. Rose Tico was the girl’s name, and she had a kind heart; she’d been the first to come forward and introduce him to the rest of the new Resistance.

When Ransolm couldn’t sleep, which was quite often, he’d walk around the perimeter of their tiny foothold on Ajan Kloss. Its two moons meant that night was never very dark. Sometimes he’d find Leia, up late, sitting in front of a cold mug of caf, and they'd trade nostalgic stories. Sometimes he’d sit in the _Falcon_ and play dejarik against himself, or the ship’s notoriously eccentric computer. Sometimes the Tico girl would find him there and watch. He felt a little sorry for her, but not sorry enough to send her away; even silent company was welcome.

One night he finally asked her, “Do you want to play?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how.”

“I can teach you.” With relief, Ransolm grabbed at the excuse of something else to think about. “It’s not hard.”

She pursed her lips and finally shrugged, sliding around the bench to face him across the glowing circular board. The multicoloured light of the figures reflected off the pendant she always wore, the style and material of which looked familiar to his collector’s eye. 

It was Haysian ore, he realized—and that told him what had likely brought her to the Resistance. Most of the population of Hays Minor had been killed or enslaved, but a few had become his fellow prisoners in the black sites of the First Order; he’d heard about its devastation. 

Well, that was her story to tell, when and if she wanted to. 

Ransolm cleared his throat. “So, in this version of the game there are eight pieces. Each player chooses four. Usually, the board chooses who goes first at random and then you alternate picking your pieces. All the pieces have different strengths and weaknesses, so you want to think about how yours can work together.” He pointed at the closest one, making its horned red form briefly shine brighter than the rest. “This is the Monnok, and it can attack two other pieces at once…”

It didn’t take long for Rose to learn the game well enough to give Ransolm a tough game. Of course, he was out of practice, but it was still clear that she was quick-thinking and had a gift for tactics. No wonder Leia had picked her as an aide. 

Something about her reminded him of Leia, though he wasn’t sure why. They weren't much alike, except in the way their small frames barely contained all of their passion and fire. But Leia had learned restraint with age, or perhaps she was just more tired now. Rose’s passion still burst out in her wide smile and her quick scowl, in her willingness to go toe to toe and argue with anyone: Connix, Dameron, even the young Jedi whom almost everyone else treated with stifling deference. Rose didn’t argue with Leia, but she didn’t simply nod her head and agree with every pronouncement of hers either.

When Ransolm learned about her sister, it made sense. Not the passion—this was a guerilla resistance, most people in it were passionate about fighting—but the way it felt so personal. He recognized the signs of someone determined to live up to a legacy.

After Leia’s death, Ransolm felt little but a cold numbness; the crushing pace of events hardly allowed for time to mourn. It felt like he couldn’t take a breath until the Battle of Exegol had been won. 

And then, suddenly, after its over-dramatic denouement, star destroyers falling from the sky like massive asteroids, and once the first dazed disbelieving celebrations were over, he found himself thrust into the position of leader. As two of the few surviving members of the Resistance who’d witnessed the beginning of this struggle and been part of anything like a normal civilian government, he and Lando Calrissian seemed to be the elder statesmen of this movement, which was frankly a terrifying thought.

The morning after Exegol, Ransolm dragged himself out of a pile of blankets on the deck of Lando’s ship. He found an unclaimed crate and pulled himself atop it as a vantage point from which to watch the sun rise over the wooded slopes of Ajan Kloss, and the unconscious bodies of half the Resistance and their allies. It was fortunate the planet had a mild climate, since most of them seemed to have slept where they fell, under the nearest bush (or friend). 

Ransolm, on the other hand, had spent most of the night grimly circulating, trying to gauge the mood of the survivors and give off the aura of a much more confident man while nursing a single cup of plum wine. He sighed, and wondered what the chances of getting any breakfast were. It was probably foolish to expect anything before midday. 

He heard a small cough and looked down to see Rose standing at his knee holding two steaming metal mugs of caf. “Thought you might want this.” 

She offered one up to him and he took it gratefully, wrapping his hands around it for the heat.

“Not hungover?” he asked. 

“No head for it.” Rose laughed. “I’ve learned to pace myself. But I could still do with the sun being a little less bright—it was a late night.”

“I’m glad someone enjoyed themselves,” Ransolm said. 

Rose ignored his insinuation and scrambled up on the other side of the crate. She perched there, drawing up her knees, and stared out at the horizon. 

“What do you want to do?” 

“I don’t know.” Rose sighed. “Finn and Jannah are already talking about searching out more ex-Troopers. Lando and Kaydel will be the negotiators, I think—they have the skills for it. Poe’s going to work on building an actual Navy, and Rey’s still learning her Jedi stuff. But there’s nothing that I can do better than anyone else.” She reached up to clasp her pendant tight, and dropped her chin. Her voice faded until it was barely audible. “My sister should be here instead of me.”

“Why do you say that?” Ransolm kept his voice quiet, gentle. 

“Paige was the brave one, the fighter. She took out a whole Dreadnaught. All I did was fix things, wear headsets and listen to scrambled commlink frequencies...” Rose snorted. “I hardly even fired a blaster in the war, except on Crait.”

Ransom sat back, wishing for a pillow or something to soften the hard surface, and sipped his caf. “Neither did the General. She wasn’t out there on the turret guns firing away at the First Order fleet. Would you say she was useless?”

“That’s completely different!” Rose objected. “She was teaching Rey about the Force, directing our strategy, doing a million other things.”

“And who did she turn to to help her realize those strategies, hmm?”

Rose flushed. “She couldn’t be everywhere at once. So she delegated stuff to Kaydel and me. That doesn’t mean we were important.”

Ransolm sighed. Apparently the girl was determined to downplay her role. Setting his mug down, he leaned forward and looked directly at Rose. “Remind me again, what’s your official rank?”

“Commander,” Rose said, with an uncertain rise to her voice.

“Who gave it to you?”

“The General.”

“And was she the kind of leader who handed out titles like candy, to people who didn’t deserve them?”

“No,” Rose muttered, with a glare that said she was still unconvinced. 

Ransolm spread his hands. “There you have it. I know you had a great deal of respect for Leia. If you won’t believe me, believe her.” He picked up his mug again; no sense in letting it get cold. 

Rose was silent for a moment, watching people begin to stir as the sun rose higher. Someone was building a fire and the crisp scent of woodsmoke stung his nose. Ransolm tried to think of something more encouraging to say, something that might pass for wisdom. “You can’t live your whole life in place of someone who’s gone,” he told her. “You can only do what you have it in you to do.”

She looked at him with a lopsided smile. “The same applies to you, you know.”

Ransolm tried to smile in return, but he could feel its rueful edge of sadness. “Leia truly was irreplaceable.” He couldn’t think of anyone else able to face down crime lords like Rinnrivin Di with the same bravado as she’d stood before the entire Galactic Senate and admitted Darth Vader was her father.

“So don’t try to replace her. Be the person we need now.” Rose said, suddenly daunting with that core of implacable steel showing through—more like Leia than ever. He wondered if she might not end up going into politics after all.

“I’m not sure I know who that is,” Ransolm admitted. “Nor what the best way forward is.” 

Rose lifted her mug, slopping caf as she gestured across the clearing at the hundreds of people waking to face a new galaxy in various states of enthusiasm. “None of us do yet. But we'll figure it out.”

He reached for her other hand and took it in a firm grip. “If you say so, Commander Tico.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to e. for her insightful beta assistance!


End file.
